New node questions

Hi. I'm setting up a new bbs-node for my local club, to replace a dos based one (fbb & bpq). It's based on slackware 9.1, on a 486, with 2 vhf ports.

Well, I have a lot of questions:

The node:

Slackware 9.1 includes linuxnode. I also found awznode. Is there anybody using it, or any other one? Which is best?

There seems to be a standard for nodes to use callsign-4. Is that correct?

I've seen some examples setting netrom names for a node (mnemonic) preceded with a # as in #NODE. Is that correct. Should I use NODE or #NODE as netrom mnemonic for the node? And what ssid should I use for the netrom port in nrports?

Convers daemon:

I donwloaded and tried htpp-1.22. It works. Then I've found htppu-1.5 and conversd-saupp. They seem to be derived one on the other, with fixes and patchs. Again, which is best?

Digipeater:

I'm using digi_ned. It's working fine, as standard digipeater. I want to enable cross port digipeating (as the system has 2 ports). Is there any standard in defining the SSIDs for a cross port digi? For example, I'm trying this:

LU6DG    digipeat on the same port (standard digi)
LU6DG-1  digipeat on port 1 (regardless the input port)
LU6DG-2  digipeat on port 2 (regardless the input port)

When crossing ports, it does callsing swaping, and works fine. Here's the config for this:

digipeat: 1 LU6DG 1
digipeat: 2 LU6DG 2
digipeat: 1 LU6DG-1 1 keep
digipeat: 2 LU6DG-1 1 swap LU6DG-2
digipeat: 2 LU6DG-2 2 keep
digipeat: 1 LU6DG-2 2 swap LU6DG-1

BBS:

A friend has been trying fbb, and it seems to have a problem when doing compressed forward to a dos or windows fbb. Do you know something about it?

What about using other bbs program than fbb? What about dpbox? Any suggestion?

Thanks for all the help.

-----------------
Rodolfo Brasnarof
LW6EAH
Punta Alta
Argentina

Hi Rodolfo

I operate vk6dlx and vk6bbs here in Perth Australia.

I am using linuxnode 0.3.2 on vk6dlx and 0.2.4 on vk6bbs. Both node programs listen for connections on ssid 1.
Looking through the node list on vk6dlx, I cannot see any evidence of a standard for the ssid.
I have not tried awznode.
On vk6dlx I just use "vk6dlx" as the mnemonic. It's been like that for years and nobody has commented so it must be ok. I never have seen anything written on use of the "#" prefix that a few stations use. I use -7 in nrports. I don't remeber why - I probably copied the one in the example files that came with the software.
I don't run a convers daemon. I have a shortcut set up in node.conf so that when a user enters "conv" it telnets to another convers server on somebody else's system. The user gets the same service without me having to maintain another software package. I do the same thing for a dx cluster service.
Digipeater: I am using Craig Small's "axdigi" which is very old but still does the job and can still be found on the net.
I have been running FBB for more than 10 years and it works fine with DOS systems.
There is always lots of room for improvement but it works.

Good luck.
Phil vk6ad

Some node software/firmware doesn't propagate nodes that have an alias beginning with "#". Those aliases are meant for backbone nodes and this behaviour is a way of "hiding" the backbone nodes from regular users.

Nowadays this isn't of much use as most(?) implementations don't comply with this "standard"...

Tomi Manninen / OH2BNS / KP20ME04